That increase in rough sleeping that the cities are anecdotally reporting to that homelessness report will be caused by the shutting down of those emergency motels. I know the Government's trying to avoid having to admit that, but that is the big thing that's changed since the election.
They've shut down the motels and some of the people who were in those motels, or who might have gone to those motels, have ended up on the streets. And I don't think that that's unexpected.
That is not an unexpected consequence of taking a tougher line on the motels.
Now, don't see me as tough or hard-hearted on this. I don't want anyone sleeping on the streets and I venture most of us don't.
But I still think that shutting down those motels was a good idea because that was out of hand, wasn't it?
I mean, spending $1.4 billion on emergency accommodation in six years was just way too much money. I prefer the line the Government's taking at the moment, which is to put the obligation where it actually should be, which is on family and friends.
Which is to say that if someone finds themselves, God forbid, without a roof over their heads, the first place that they should go for help is not the state. It should be their mum or their brother or their auntie or their son or their friend.
And only then when all of their options are exhausted and they really have no one to turn to, then should they turn to the state.
But that is not what was happening with the emergency motels. The state was the first port of call.
If you think about it, the state has stepped in to take over a lot of roles that we normally would have relied on each other for. And in some cases, it's unavoidable and in some cases it's for the best, for example - police, or whatever.
But in this case, let's be honest, $1.4 billion is a lot of money that could have been spent on anything else that we are running dry on right now. Healthcare, cops, education.
So actually, the first place you turn to if you don't have somewhere to sleep is your family. Only at the end of the road should the state step in.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
There are about 30 or so on Queen Street. Most of them have cell phones and aren't there on the mornings when it is really cold. They are fake homeless as they have accom paid for by us.
It would have made more sense to buy the motels with the money. Instead they made the owners very wealthy people.
If you were to delve back into the Radio NZ archives you would find a 30min documentary on people sleeping rough on Auckland city streets in the 1980s.
That documentary revealed that for almost everyone of them, sleeping under Grafton Bridge was a lifestyle choice - deliberately abandoning normal life, perhaps only for 6 months, then reverting to jobs and houses.
In more recent times, I have seen a secondary school kid chose to sleep on the streets, leaving a warm good loving family. Parents even took school work to her, but she was adamant that she wanted to live roughly.
You can only do so much, it's their choices.
The increase in "homelessness" is driven by the epidemic of drug abuse and alcoholism and addiction that has led to swollen mental health problems - It's not a big mystery.
But deluding ourselves by using the word homeless to hide the real problem is not helping.
When my parents were first married with a baby in the 1940s when there was a drastic shortage of housing after the war , they lived in a tent in a MOW costruction site. There was a camp kitchen and ablution block.
Why do the homeless have to have such luxury accommodation as motels ?
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